Is golf the hardest of all games to master?

JohnnyDee

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If you're anything like me, in addition to golf, you may have played other sports during life's wonderous journey. What's more you may well also have attained a degree of proficiency in them, skill levels that enabled you to play within a certain level of predictable ability every time you played them.

So why then then, when considering golf, can we play like a Tour Pro one day and the very next hack it round like a total beginner? These unpredictable variances are for many what drive us mad on the course.

When stinking it out we can only think about the times we've shot the lights out. It's just totally infuriating and has been known to make the most levelheaded clergyman contemplate murder when they're going through the horrors out on the links.

So it begs the question therefore: Is golf the hardest of all games to master?

My view is quite simple -Yes!!!
 
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delc

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Like many sports it rather depends on at what level you want to play it. I think that Snooker is just as difficult if you want to play it to a professional standard. Both require many hours of practice and a misspent youth!
 

JohnnyDee

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Like many sports it rather depends on at what level you want to play it. I think that Snooker is just as difficult if you want to play it to a professional standard. Both require many hours of practice and a misspent youth!

Funnily enough snooker was my game before falling under golf's spell, and I did indeed spend quite some time at it.

I was never anywhere near professional standard but was nevertheless a pretty steady club player. Each time I played, although sometimes I may have had an off day, by and large, I played pretty much to the level that was in-keeping with my general ability.

However playing golf off an official 11.6 handicap I have no problem, some days, playing off 26 whilst on others playing off 6.

It's total madness I tells yah!
 
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garyinderry

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Golf can come down to fractions of a degree at swinging at 100 mph. The exact same swing ever so slightly miss hit on the face will lead to a very different result.

This is why the game is so infuriating.

It has a very steep learning curve but the simplest of things while learning can be fulfilling.


Hardest game to master. Sure even the best will eventually be made to look ordinary.

There is a saying, ''a good golf swing is only ever on loan''. so true. :(
 

delc

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Funnily enough snooker was my game before falling under golf's spell, and I did indeed spend quite some time at it.

I was never anywhere near professional standard but was nevertheless a pretty steady club player. Each time I played, although sometimes I may have had an off day, by and large, I played pretty much to the level that was in-keeping with my general ability.

However playing golf off an official 11.6 handicap I have no problem, some days, playing off 26 whilst on others playing off 6.

It's total madness I tells yah!
I played snooker for many years. Some evenings I could make 30 or 40 breaks and other evenings I couldn't pot a ball. A bit like golf really!
 

Thexindi

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If you're anything like me, in addition to golf, you may have played other sports during life's wonderous journey. What's more you may well also have attained a degree of proficiency in them, skill levels that enabled you to play within a certain level of predictable ability every time you played them.

So why then then, when considering golf, can we play like a Tour Pro one day and the very next hack it round like a total beginner? These unpredictable variances are for many what drive us mad on the course.

When stinking it out we can only think about the times we've shot the lights out. It's just totally infuriating and has been known to make the most levelheaded clergyman contemplate murder when they're going through the horrors out on the links.

So it begs the question therefore: Is golf the hardest of all games to master?

My view is quite simple -Yes!!!

All sport played professionally is hard, they all take time and practice and commitment.
Most people have sports they find that bit more easier to play then others
 

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Yes. Over the years I have played Football, Cricket, Golf, Tennis, Squash, Snooker, Pool, Badminton and Hockey and golf is by some distance the hardest to master.

But it is also by some distance the most addictive! :)
 

delc

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Yes. Over the years I have played Football, Cricket, Golf, Tennis, Squash, Snooker, Pool, Badminton and Hockey and golf is by some distance the hardest to master.

But it is also by some distance the most addictive! :)
In cricketing terms you have to hit every shot for 6 over the bowler's head with a very small ball and a not much bigger bat. In cricket a complete miss-hit or an edge can still score a 4 or 6, but in golf will put you in loads of trouble. On the other hand you don't have to face a fast bowler chucking the ball at you at 90 mph, or a devilish spin bowler. :mmm:
 
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Tongo

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In cricketing terms you have to hit every shot for 6 over the bowler's head with a very small ball and a not much bigger bat. In cricket a complete miss-hit or an edge can still score a 4 or 6, but in golf will put you in loads of trouble. On the other hand you don't have to face a fast bowler chucking the ball at you at 90 mph, or a devilish spin bowler.

The margins are so much finer in golf though. As you say, you can make a mistake in cricket and end up with four runs. Be half a centimetre out on a tee shot and you can be playing 3 off the tee. It can be swings and roundabouts in that what looks like a bad shot will be okay in golf and a cracking shot will be caught in cricket but I think the margin of error is so much less. I thought golf looked easy until I began playing. Then I realised just how good the best players are.
 

MashieNiblick

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Not just that it's hard to master but there is no respite or hiding place on those bad days. You still have to get your ball round the course playing every shot on every hole and there is no one else to blame. :(
 

walliams8

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Yes . Followed closely by snooker , however with snooker at least you can always hit the ball and it will go generally straight .
 

The Gentleman

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Yes. It is the reason why I didn't take golf up until recently. I couldn't understand why I could cuff a small red leather ball, travelling at 80 mph and swinging in the air all over a large field, yet found it so difficult to hit a, albeit, smaller stationary ball of the ground. Made my blood boil.
 

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After playing football rugby cricket and for a small while, tennis, I would say golf is the hardest.

I think it was a Jack Nicklaus quote but I may be wrong, where it was said that golf is the only sport where if you win 20% of the time you are considered the best player around.

Even then the top tour pro's are constantly saying there are areas they need to improve. You could probably say that Lionel Messi has mastered football, or that Michael Schumacher mastered F1, but I'd struggle to find a tour pro who has "mastered" golf.
 

Hacker Khan

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I'd agree that is is extremely difficult to master from an amateur perspective. I think you should take the professional level out as all professionals at any sport practice a stupid amount of time. I play badminton to a half decent standard and find it strange that I can often return a shuttlecock to where I mostly want it to go when it is being smashed at me at 70 mph in a fraction of a second. But I often struggle to hit a stationary ball to where I want it to go.

I think as others have said, in golf there are such fine tolerances that you can get away with in most other sports.
 

virtuocity

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The likes of golf and snooker are way different from football, rugby, badminton et al. Mainly because in sports like golf, you measure your scores against what the best in the world shoot, whereas you can score more goals in a football season that Lionel Messi as you are competing against other people of a similar level.
 
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